Working Life

    I always shake my head when I read that the country no longer has industry and has evolved into a "service economy". That simple isn’t true. The main problem is that we have jobs–whether industrial or service–that don’t pay decently and are largely non-union.     Someone thinks we should do something about that: The […]

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   Maybe a trend: The Jimmy John’s restaurants here are known for serving attitude with their sandwiches. Many of their young workers wear nose rings, beards and dreadlocks, and the shops sport mottoes like “The Customer Is Usually Right” and “Subs So Fast You’ll Freak.” But recently, the employees at the 10 shops here have […]

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   It’s old news by now that the nomination of Craig Becker to be a member of the National Labor Relations Board has been blocked–or, as the British like to say in a more interesting way, scuppered. Understand that Becker actually got 52 votes–FIFTY-TWO–in favor of his appointment. In my long-ago civics class, I was […]

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   The financial newspapers are buzzing with the news of a coalition of business leaders stepping forward to propose executive compensation limits. I think this is only a secondary issue. Don’t get me wrong–I think the greed that has swamped the country at the executive suite level is astonishing. And it should be dealt with. […]

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   I have had my doubts, as expressed here over these many months, about the Employee Free Choice Act–whether it would do what the labor movement said it would do (unleash organizing of millions of workers) and, most important, whether it would pass in its proposed form.    Well, you can forget about the latter […]

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   It will be a steep hill to climb but it’s good to read about this, via The Wall Street Journal: The United Food and Commercial Workers union is ramping up organizing at Wal Mart Stores Inc. after a five-year lull, dovetailing with its efforts to win support in Congress for a bill to make […]

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   Yesterday, I pointed out that the math being used to figure out whether the Employee Free Choice Act would pass is a bit flawed, particularly as it relates to the Senate. Today, the New York Times has an article about yesterday’s introduction of the bill, which says this: Republican and business strategists said some […]

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If you believe that a society cannot be truly democratic without a strong labor movement, and if you believe that the only way to build a fair economy is by making sure people can belong to unions, then, this is where a line must be drawn: Democratic Senators who block or undercut the Employee Free […]

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    Building union support in any workplace is a tough road, certainly given the intense anti-union activity on the part of employers. Given the state of the labor movement–small and almost invisible, how do you get the numbers you need to build the labor movement into a large presence?      One approach is to build […]

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    Building union support in any workplace is a tough road, certainly given the intense anti-union activity on the part of employers. Given the state of the labor movement–small and almost invisible, how do you get the numbers you need to build the labor movement into a large presence?      One approach is to build […]

Read the full story